In the Summer of 1995, a blistering heat wave settled over Chicago for three days. It killed 739 people, making it one of the most unexpectedly lethal disasters in modern American history. No statistical models of the heat wave predicted such a high death toll. Researchers in the American Journal of Public Health reported that their analysis “failed to detect relationships between the weather and mortality that would explain what happened.”

A fascinating article in which Eric Klinenberg describes what he found when he returned to his home town to explore why some neighbourhoods seemed to recover quicker than others, even though on paper they looked very similar.

Sophie Unwin of Remade in Edinburgh has written an article on Scotland’s Common Space web site about how learning to repair and reuse benefits the community.

Remade in Edinburgh teaches repair and reuse skills, and sells recycled and upcycled IT equipment and furniture. The inspiration for starting Remade came from Sophie’s experience of living for a year in rural Nepal, where very little was wasted or thrown away. Back in the UK she got to thinking about how we should value people with useful fixing skills should be more than we do, and planted the idea for creating a reuse and repair centre, with a business model of repair education.

Remade in Edinburgh started in 2011 with £60 and a group of volunteers. Now in 2016 it has 10 employees, 20 volunteers and over 10 freelance tutors. It still relies on some core funding from Edinburgh Council and Zero Waste Scotland, but about 50% of their income currently comes from business activities and that is projected to grow to 80% by 2018.

The Committee on Fuel Poverty has published its first report – spelling out what needs to be done to help England’s 2.38 million households struggling to pay their energy bills.

It is refreshingly clear and doesn’t seem to pull its punches. It highlights the scale of investment needed if the Government is to achieve its strategic targets to increase the energy efficiency of fuel poor homes to Band E by 2020, Band D by 2025 and Band C by 2030. It also argues for better targeting of support, for which better sharing of information between government departments – which they are beginning to do, and that Government funding to address fuel poverty should be complemented by investment from other sources including landlords and by making energy efficiency a national infrastructure priority. Finally, the committee highlights the importance of choosing the right approach to provide help and advice. Whilst supporting a continued obligation on suppliers, the committee also recommends the championing of community-based energy efficiency initiatives and that local health commissioners act on the link between cold homes and ill health.

As this is the first report of a new committee it is a bit more expansive nature than later ones are likely to be, which makes it a useful primer on the Government’s Fuel Poverty Strategy as well as the committee’s role in supporting its delivery.

You can read a concise summary of its key points in the Energy Saving Trust’s blog post on the report, ‘The stark challenge of fuel poverty’, along with their initial response.

Eleven groups around the City of Bristol have been offered a total of £58,132 to undertake a range of energy projects in local communities.

The grants are being awarded by Bristol City Council through its Bristol Community Energy Fund – an initiative which encourages local solutions to community-specific energy challenges.

This new round of grants builds on the success of Bristol Community Energy Fund’s first round of funding for 12 local projects earlier this year. Many of these original projects are now well underway with St Werburghs Community Farm and the Bristol Playbus projects having been completed early.

As with the previous round of grant funding, the judging panel prioritised submissions that looked to enable renewable energy generation, reduce fuel poverty and change behaviour – all with the intention of making Bristol more sustainable and working towards the city’s target to become carbon neutral by 2050.

One of the first projects to receive funding during this round is the ‘TWO’s Project’ being led by Easton Energy Group, which will look at setting up a microgrid across two streets in Easton by connecting Solar PV with battery storage installed on residents’ houses. The project has the potential to directly reduce carbon and create a model that could be replicated across the rest of the city.

Other projects which have been offered funding include door-to-door energy awareness sessions being led by Talking Money and the installation of numerous energy-efficiency measures such as insulation for Zion Bristol.

The creation of low-carbon, sustainable British cities can only be addressed through collaboration between the public sector and innovative green businesses. That was the overwhelming view of sustainable leaders from UK cities who gathered at an event hosted by the London Borough Sutton to share experiences, strategies and case-studies of best-practice approaches to delivering sustainable cities.

Glasgow City Council has partnered with a number of businesses on diverse sustainability projects which provide job creation and green capital growth. The low-carbon sector is worth about 37,000 jobs and £5.5bn per year in Greater Manchester. Nottingham surpassed it’s climate change targets four years early thanks to a wide range of organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors working to reduce the city’s environmental impact. Swindon Borough Council launched the UK’s first ever council solar bond earlier this year. And Peterborough is striving to create the UK’s first circular city by 2050.

What comes through clearly in each of the examples in Edie’s write up of the event is that alongside setting ambitious targets it is all about engaging a wide range of partners in the challenge. In talking about Manchester’s decision to aim to become a zero-carbon city by 2050, Jonny Sadler, Manchester Climate Change Agency’s programme director, admits that the target is ‘incredibly challenging’, and concedes he ‘doesn’t honestly know how it’s going to get there’, but he remains adamant that collaboration through public, private and academic partners will help the City achieve its bold objectives.

Community buildings across Reading benefit from solar panel installations.

Over the past three months solar panels have been installed on 10 community buildings including places of worship, community and council buildings and charity headquarters in and around Reading. That’s a total of 176kWp of solar panels!

The panels have been funded by the people of Reading and renewable energy supporters nationwide. Over 120 people invested over £230k in the project. This is the first scheme of its kind in Reading.

Reading Community Energy Society was created by local volunteers, known as the Berkshire Energy Pioneers, the local council and Energy4All who have over 12 years experience in the community green energy sector.

The Society has been set up so that after a fair return of 5% has been paid to investors, the profits, estimated to be £260,000 over the 20 year life of the project, will go back to the community as part of a community fund.

Tony Hoskins, Chair of Reading Community Energy Society, explains:

The main objectives of the project is to help reduce energy bills of the community buildings involved, improve the sustainability of our community, reduce climate change emissions and improve energy security. We are looking forward to working with the building owners and users and local community to ensure the project delivers these benefits.